National Feral Cat Day: Q & A With Chriss Pagani
It’s National Feral Cat Day, created in 2001 by Alley Cat Allies to educate people about spaying and neutering and the need to protect stray and feral cats. Click on the link above for an interactive map for events in your area.
There are many rescue groups worldwide, and then there are the individuals and small groups without charitable status who find the call of the ferals irresistible. It’s the woman in your neighborhood who feeds a feral colony or the man who keep a humane trap in his pick-up truck. I know: I’m one them. We love those elusive felines who live on the border of society. Years ago, I used to feed a colony of ferals in Toronto. One thing led to another (as it seems to with cats) and I ended up founding the Annex Cat Rescue
People who love and rescue ferals are a special breed and we’re proud to share the wisdom and extraordinary feral cat photography of Chriss Pagani, an artist from Portland, Oregon who heads the Feral Cat Rescue Project. She writes about her experience rescuing and photographing feral cats at her mesmerizing blog that is equal parts heartbreak and hope. I’m so enamored with the work she does, I’m posting more tomorrow.
Q & A with Chriss Pagani of The Feral Cat Rescue Project
LMW: What is the biggest misconception about feral cats?
CP: One big thing is the idea that feral cats are somehow wild animals that need to be exterminated. They’re not; they are descendants of domestic house cats that were once pets but were dumped or abandoned. Part of this confusion comes from the very generic use of the term “stray” when applied homeless cats. A feral cat was likely the offspring of a former pet, but it was never raised with human contact. A stray cat isn’t really really straying from anything: It was probably abandoned by its heartless former owners and is now trying to survive “in the wild.” Feral cats need a food source and a safe place to sleep; stray cats need a new home.
LMW: As someone who has documented the lives of feral cats for years, what have you learned about them and what have they taught you about life?
CP: I’ve learned that, like us, every feral cat is as unique as a snowflake. They each have their own personality, quirks, preferences… they are individuals. From feral cats I’ve learned how we are each unique in our own way, yet have many of the same needs. A feral cat wants to just not be hungry for a change – and have a safe place to sleep. That’s pretty much like the rest of us when you get down to basics. Sadly, I’ve also learned far more about suffering in the world than I ever wanted to know. It does haunt me at times.
CP: Tell us about Lucy, a feral kitten who you adopted.
CP: Lucy is a beautiful bobtail harlequin cat that was abandoned as a kitten in the fall of 2006. Feral moms have a hard time and they sometimes just give up. Anyway, I found Lucy when she was 4 weeks old. We tried to find her mom and her litter but never succeeded. Lucy had a lot of health problems, including things that pretty much every feral kitten has, like worms, fleas, anemia (from both of the latter) plus an eye infection. With plenty of warm kitten milk replacement and some vet care, she recovered just fine and is now my closest pet. She prefers to always remain at my side. In fact, she’s here helping me answer these questions!
LMW: How many cats do you live with or consider to be your pets?
CP: I have five cats that live with me, all adopted as former ferals, it’s the maximum I’m allowed to have. In addition there are four or five cats in the feral colony that were captured and tamed as kittens and put up for adoption, but they never found homes. I try to give them love and attention as often as I can but it’s not the same as having a loving home to call ones own.
LMW: If a reader would like to learn more about helping feral cats, what do you recommend?
CP: My first recommendation is that you look around your local area for small rescue organizations that do trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs, or even talk to a crazy cat lady. The best thing you can do is always right where you are. The big national organizations like The Humane Society and PETA are very showy and get a lot of publicity, but it’s likely that lone volunteers or small groups are performing all the real rescue work done in your area. You can also find information at Alley Cat Allies (alleycat.org) or my own Feral Cat Rescue Project.
LMW: Are cats your muse for your other art work?
CP: The kitties have certainly help me with my photography, in that I’ve had to think about new ways to present them as they are, without the bias that a camera lens can so easily introduce. In addition, I think that knowing about their lives has introduced new layers of complexity in my work; layers both of sadness and of hope.
Follow Chriss on Twitter @pagani and visit The Feral Cat Rescue Project for more info and her spectacular 2013 Feral Cat Calendar. Check out the gorgeous thumbnails of these beautiful faces.
Other Artwork by Chriss.
26 Comments
Oui Oui
We hope one day ferals will be extinct. All animals deserve a home.
Lisa Fleming
Heartfelt thanks to Chriss for pouring all of her passion into giving them the love they so deserve. Their fur faces have such stories to share with the world. Grateful, Lisa
catfromhell
What a great post! We don’t has ferals here. We has a few barn cats, that lives around here though. They has foods and a job. Most of the local farmers neuter. They cares for their cats. Well fed cats catches way more rodents. When they needs new cats, they gets them from a shelter. Sometimes they (the cats) come to visit and they is very skittish. We lives far enough away from the city wes don’t gets dumped cats. Those that are, unfortunately are often coyote food. Me don;t understand peoples who thinks that cats can “goes wild”.
Kisses
Nellie
meowmeowmans
Thank you for sharing about the amazing work Chriss is doing. We have been reading her blog for quite some time, and it is terrific.
Savannah NanaMo
really great post. brings it all home. we don’t have any ferals here, and whenever Mom and Dad have found any living around their house, they always trap and get them s/n and have been lucky to find homes.
Skeeter and Izzy
As long as I live I will never understand how anyone can abandon an animal. This interview like so many others gives me a renewed sense of hope. I have 6-8 ferals in my neighboorhood right now with 3 being the surviving 4 month old kittens from a very young female. The female had a bond with a feral male that went way beyond the mating time. They were inseperable even after the kittens were born. She was hit and killed by a car when the kittens weren’t really old enough to be weaned. The male has raised the kittens like a female would. He protects them and watches and waits for them to eat first when anyone provides food.He lets them drink first and watches their every move when they are out of hiding. Where you see one you will see the others if you watch a few minutes. We are thankfully pretty much a cat loving area in the neighborhood where I live and there is a patch of woods and field space around my house so the cats have a little bit better place to avoid some of the dangers that they could face and there are mice to be had to help supplement their diet. We all try to help feed them and insure that they have water and they have access to shelter on several properties. We are doing what we each can to try to protect and aid these ferals.
Thank you Chriss and thank you Layla for caring and loving. Luvs and purrs to all that make a difference just by doing something. Skeeter and Izzy >^..^<
boomermuse
Thanks for sharing. I love hearing these stories. If everyone did just one thing, helped one cat, we’d make a huge dent into this subject.
Connie Marie
What a wonderful article. She is one busy lady! She knows alot abour ferel cats and it’s good she’s sharing. I feel terrible for the 5 kittens put up for adoption and didn’t find homes. Can’t wait for tomorrows piece.
The difference between stray and feral is small in my opinion, they both need the help and strays can be as wild as ferals or as hard to tame. But that is just my opinion.
boomermuse
There is often a fine line and yes they all need help.
da tabbies o trout towne
thiz iz another awesum post odin…
🙂
N eye can ree late ta lucy even tho eye wuz considered semi feral
eye wont go in two what eye went thru on de streets….may bee later… but eye N de rest oh de trouters trooly hope all de ferals that can bee forever homed….finds one…
manee thanx two ewe chriss along with de blessing oh st francis two all
butter lover boomer o cat =^..^=
Cats of wildcat woods
Good post today. we joined in to – telling the story of how all us ferals got TNR’d!
Sexy Feral Cat Lady
I love how Chriss describes feral cats as unique as a SNOWFLAKE! What a lovely and accurate attribute. I’m a proud feral cat lady and care for over 20 feral cats in downtown Miami and now South Beach. They are incredible creatures and there is much work to educate the public about them their plight. Thank you for your contribution!
Catcalls
What a wonderful interview. I’m so thrilled to see Chriss get attention for what she is doing – day in and day out – always giving, always caring, always hoping. Many kitties are happy today because of Chriss!
sue brandes
Great post. My heart goes out to all the ferals out there. They deserve love too.
CATachresis
Such a lovely post, Layla 🙂 Reminds me I need to go visit Freshfields sometime soon!!
CarenOsrinGittleman (@CatChatCaren)
thank you for sharing this wonderful post with us!
Zee and Zoey - Deb Barnes
Wonderful interview, Layla! I cannot commend Chriss enough for what she does for these beautiful and misunderstood creatures. It is such a seesaw of hope and tragedy and it takes a very special person to be able to care for these cats. I will definatley follow the Feral Cat Project and I loved the photos.
Chris Davis
A great interview, Layla – Chriss really is an inspiration!
BJ Bangs
Great post. I really like the way she described the ferals, comparing them to humans. They are so very misunderstood, portrayed as evil ‘wild cats’, when they really are sweet kitties trying to find a way to survive. Also re-pinned and tweeted one of your photos.
Random Felines
great post – thanks for introducing us to Chriss….keep up the good work!!! (and yes, we have a live trap in the garage)
Brian
Thanks for such a thoughtful and loving interview. We love all feral kitties and try to do our best for them every single day!
maggie
Excellent interview and wonderful photographs. Two of my cats are formerly ferals, found as kittens in the woods. They’re both shy of strangers but totally loving to our human family. We feel so fortunate to have them in our lives.
Marg
That is a wonderful post. It is so much fun to meet someone else that loves the feral cats. They are great cats and can make really nice pets and as she said, as long as they have food and shelter, they can live a good life.
Sparkle
These are wonderful photographs of feral kitties! I wish more humans understood the beauty and mystery of these cats.
Kathryn
Aww. Nothing warms my heart like ferals and strays getting a home.
Ched shed a tear just now, sitting by me, for the pain and loneliness the ferals face and he wishes they will all find forever homes.
d'Artagnan Rumblepurr
Purring for all the sweet feral kitties out there.